45
In person the next morning, Taylor just looked very drowsy and a little bit furtive.
He and Boone arrived shortly before noon to give me a lift to my mom's house, once the doctor approved my butt. Despite the zigzag path of the bullet, it was a fairly clean wound and my hindquarters received the thumbs-up.
Figuring I'd only be able to wear loose-fitting pants, Boone had thoughtfully brought me a pair of his – and while before I might've frowned on inserting myself into the big man's pungent trousers, I was grateful to have them now. I cinched them tight at the waist, drawing up the yards of extra fabric.
"You know, if we filled these with helium, I could just float home," I said, marveling at the roominess of the pants. Cautious of the fabric's proximity to the stitches in my butt, I took the pants on a test drive, limping in a tight circle around the hospital room. "I don't think my legs are even touching the sides."
"We'll get you some pointy shoes and make an Ali Baba movie," Boone laughed.
Taylor played along with the wacky giant-pants humor, but something was obviously eating at him, driving him to feign interest in whatever Bob Barker was giving away on
The Price is Right
. I noticed that he deliberately avoided making eye contact with me as we gathered my belongings and left the room.
As I tried to stretch the huge pants from one side of the elevator to the other, Taylor finally cracked.
"Speaking of getting into someone's pants," he began, rubbing his chin and staring at the floor of the elevator.
Boone suddenly discovered something very interesting on the ceiling.
"What?" I asked, thinking Taylor had somehow found out about Mia's visit last night. "What do you know?"
Taylor met my gaze at last, looking more than a little confused by my question. "Huh?"
"How'd you find out?"
"What? – Wait," Taylor said, trying to sort things out. "I don't think we're talking about the same thing."
"Then what are you talking about?"
He hesitated, found a smudge on the tile that needed prodding with a boot. The elevator's bell chimed and the doors opened. Boone launched himself from the elevator and took off down the hall, actually
whistling
nonchalantly
.
"The blight of my past has been lifted," Taylor cryptically announced, walking out of the elevator.
I followed, waddling gingerly in an attempt to keep my ass from touching fabric. "You mean you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?"
Taylor slowed, allowing me to catch up. Boone was a tiny speck in the distance.
"C'mon, it was your idea," Taylor said.
My waddling came to a sudden halt, the pants catching up to thump softly against my wound; even so, it was enough to make my eyes tear up. "Are you telling me you slept with Kelli?"
"Yeah. More or less."
"
More or less?
What does that even mean?"
"Okay, more," Taylor admitted. "I'm sorry, man – I don't even know how it happened."
"Yeah, I've been there," I said.
At the far end of the corridor, Boone looked back quickly as if assuring himself that Taylor and I weren't slugging it out, then escaped through the sliding doors.
"It started out so innocent," Taylor blurted, still shocked by the event. "I bought cheeseburgers for her and Lydia last night. There was talking. Then there was bedtime for Lydia and after that, with the kid out of our hair – I don't know — it was nobody's fault," he declared, voice rising. The machine-gun burst of words finally free, he took a long breath. "I don't blame you if you're pissed off."
I shook my head, still staring at the doors Boone had disappeared through. "I'm not pissed."
That was the weird thing: rather than feeling angry, I was actually kind of
relieved
. Like all the stuff I'd screwed up had worked itself out, maybe even – dare I think it? – for the better.
"Boy,
I
would be," Taylor said.
"No," I said, eyes flicking to Taylor's. I smiled. "It was worth it just to see Boone move that fast."
"Yeah," Taylor agreed. "We'd better get out there and make sure he's not unconscious."
46
"Daniel wants to know when he can have his camera back," Mom told me.
I was kneeling on the floor next to the couch, my upper torso resting on the seat. We were watching
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
on Turner Classic Movies; Robert Osborne had just delivered another of his oddly-soothing introductions. I tugged the seat of Boone's enormous pants away from my tender flesh, wincing as the denim caught a stitch.
"I dunno, anytime, I guess," I said.
"Well, I told him to stop being an asshole."
Like I said: a good mom.
The doorbell rang. I started to struggle to my feet, no simple task when the slightest brush of fabric on buns can buckle the knees.
"I'll get it, stay put," Mom said, putting her quilting aside.
I heard her talking excitedly with someone; she returned, ushering Kelli and Lydia into the room. The little girl immediately pointed at me, laughing.
"You got shot in the butt," Lydia said.
"And my name's Alvin."
You'd have thought I was Jerry Lewis and she was France.
"Be nice, Lydia," Kelli scolded.
It didn't matter, anyway – Lydia's attention had been captured by my mom's quilting work. The little girl zeroed in and unleashed an onslaught of questions.
Holding the big pants out in the rear, I carefully stood, facing Kelli. "Let me get you something to drink."
"I'm okay – just sit," she said, grimacing worriedly, her hands up as if I might break.
"Just come with me," I insisted.
In the kitchen, I poured us a couple of Cokes, mulling over what I was going to say as the fizz settled.
"You know about me and Taylor, huh?" Kelli winced.
"Yeah, he told me – "
"It wasn't revenge, I want you to know that. It was just – "
"I know," I said, baffling her with a smile. "That's not what I wanted to talk about."
"It's not?"
I shook my head. "That whole stupid plan of mine. It's no excuse, but I was drunk when I thought of it, and for some goddamn reason I didn't have the sense to let go of it when I was sober," I said, the words rushing out. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry."
"You did that already," she said.
"And I wanted to thank you. For
The Blue Man
. I think I know now what you were doing."
She smiled like I'd caught her at something. "You were always so crazy about movies," she said. "It drove me nuts a lot of the time – I wanted to do girl stuff, like my friends. It was embarrassing as hell when they'd ask me why I wasn't at some big party and I'd have to explain that I'd gone to a midnight screening of
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
instead. They thought I was a total flake."
"I guess I was pretty lousy at the teenage boyfriend thing," I admitted.
"Parts of it, maybe." She poked me in the stomach. "But I didn't hate it. Afterwards, I even missed it sometimes. I mean, you were really into that stuff," she laughed. "It was hard not to get swept along by that. When you came back and told me what you'd been through out there ... it's like Hollywood made you what you are, then beat it out of you when you tried to give something back. I just figured you kinda needed a reminder."
"I still think that sleeping-with-you thing would've worked," I said, smiling. "Saved us all a lot of trouble."
I learned then that Kelli was capable of punching a wounded man. Gently, however.
47
I paused as I passed the window, looking down at the cute Asian girl next door. She was carrying a handful of Hula Hoops from her car to the house; as usual, she never looked in my direction. Wondering what she could possibly be doing with all those Hula Hoops, I raised a knuckle to tap on the glass just as she disappeared inside.
Just as well, I suppose. I didn't want to start something I couldn't finish.
Packing my things wasn't the miserable, downhearted experience I feared it might be – I think I used that up when I moved out of the apartment I shared with Alison – nor was it filled with the exhilaration of going somewhere new, starting fresh. I think
that
one ran dry when Alison and I moved to LA. This time, it just felt
good
.
I stood amidst the small cluster of boxes, taking stock. Nathan would be showing up soon to help me load my car for the drive home to Albuquerque. It might be tough, but I was certain we could cram everything into the vehicle. The worst part would be suffering the pain in my wounded ass for the duration of the drive – it had only been a couple weeks since the gunshot. I'd make lots of rest stops.
Taylor and I were planning to finish
The Blue Man
— foolishly, perhaps, but with any luck, nobody would get killed or lose a testicle during the rest of the shoot. Walt Patrick had set me up with editing software; I could easily put the movie together on my computer — possibly even give it a phony veneer of professionalism. Of course,
The Blue Man
wouldn't mean a thing in the real world — a ridiculous short like that would be laughed out of Hollywood, barely a step above kids playing in the yard. But that was kind of the point: I wasn't making it for Hollywood. I was making it for me.
As for how I'd be paying the bills, well, Taylor had pulled some strings and I'd be joining the graveyard shift at the bookstore, alongside my old pal and the goofball twins, Aaron and Noel.
I was still struggling to decide if all this represented a spectacular victory on my part, or an astonishing failure. Before, I'd feared moving back home because it would've meant slinking away like a whipped dog, the Beast of Hollywood having crushed yet another victim beneath its scaly claw. But I think I knew better now. I had finally realized it wasn't the constant rejection or the endless struggling that had gotten to me – that was part of the show; I expected it all along. It was the people in charge. I loved movies too much to play with them anymore. And maybe — I don't know, this is where I start to get lost, and I'm not sure if I was just trying to splash a shiny coat of paint on everything in hopes of disguising my failure — but maybe that was what I'd been missing all along: some people are meant to play the games, fight the fights, make the movies. And some people are just meant to love what flickers past up on the screen.
It didn't hurt to know that Mia was waiting at the end of the road, either. She was working on a list of movies she'd always wanted to see; when I got home, we were going to start watching them. Maybe that's not as glamorous or exciting as working in Hollywood, but it sounded damn fine to me.
I did one last sweep of the tiny apartment, checking drawers and cabinets for anything left behind. There hadn't been much to forget, anyway. There was only one thing left to pack: the phone.
I walked to the phone jack and reached for the cord, then thought of something I hadn't done yet.
Taking a deep breath, I dialed Alison's number.
Four rings, then Alison's voice on the answering machine. She sounded happy, and I was pleased that I felt good about that.
"Hi, you've reached Alison and Creighton. We're not in right now, so please leave a message at the beep."
Creighton. I knew it was something screwy.
I left a message; told her I was moving back to Albuquerque, and that I was doing okay.
Like the script says: FADE TO BLACK.
The author, with crabby Chihuahua.
about the author
In addition to his previous careers (installing gas pumps, bussing tables, painting apartments, cleaning toilets, delivering pizza and running his own video store) Scott S. Phillips has written in almost every capacity imaginable: films, TV, comic books and even dialogue for talking dolls. He's the author of the short story collection
Tales of Misery and Imagination
,
the novel
Friday the 13th: Church of the Divine Psychopath
and his film reviews have been collected in the aptly titled
Unsafe On Any Screen
. Scott is also the co-editor (with Robert E. Vardeman) of the anthology
Career Guide For Your Job In Hell
, and has a story in that collection.
Scott has worked in many capacities in the movie industry, including writing and directing his own incredibly low-budget films,
Gimme Skelter
($5000) and
The Stink of Flesh
($3000). He wrote the screenplay for the cult action flick
Drive
and wrote several episodes of the Saturday morning TV show
Kamen Rider Dragon Knight
. He has worked in sound editing, make-up FX, cheeseburger-fetching and even marched around the New Mexico hills in the classic flick
Red Dawn
. Perhaps most importantly, he once performed as stand-in for the legendary Lemmy in a Motorhead video.
To avoid confusion, Scott S. Phillips has promised similarly named author Scott Phillips
(The Ice Harvest)
that he would always utilize his middle initial whenever he writes a book. At least on the cover.
Scott can be found online at
www.cheese-magnet.com
, where he writes about movies and monsters and anything else he thinks is cool.
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